Partner II w/Expansion Cabinet Problem 1

[FarmerTech]

Here in Maine we got hit with the recent blizzard and after some strange power fluctuations, I lost the expansion cabinet of our Partner II Release 3.1. All four cards and the expansion processor were dead (no power light). Pulled all modules and tested the cabinet, 120V was available to all five of the 14-pin power ports and the switch checked out OK. Put in new expansion processor and still no power light?

The cabinet just has two printed circuit boards in it and I pulled these for inspection and then look fine. Any ideas?

 

[TouchToneTommy]

Try the modules in the primary carrier to be sure one of then hasn't failed, preventing the expansion carrier from powering up.

 

[FarmerTech]

Thanks for the posting. I hate going at this thing w/o a schematic but the problem does seem "power related".

According to your post I cannot have the "power" LED on the expansion processor light-up unless the expansion processor is linked to the main processor via the cable?

So there is no way to test the expansion processor "alone" in the cabinet to see if it powers-up. The expansion processor will only light-up in the presence of a "good" cabinet, a "good" interconnection cable and a "good" main processor. This makes trouble-shooting tricky.

I have a known "good" extra expansion processor and a known "good" extra main processor with a couple of extra known "good" 206E modules/cards. Your scenario would explain why the replacement expansion processor did not light-up in the cabinet and also explain why the replacement expansion processor did not light-up in the main cabinet when I slipped it in place of the main processor to test.

This makes my think that I have a bad interconnection cable. Not the 1st place I would have looked. I'll check the cable for continuity and shorts.

Thanks.

 

[FarmerTech]

Thanks for the post. I am off-site at the moment and I can't recall if I tried that scenario yet, but I will.

The PARTNER II cabinet (model 103F) does not have a fuse. The top right of the cabinet is where the power comes in and has a single-pole switch. Power is distributed via a printed circuit board (PCB) with 5 each, 14-pin male connectors soldered to the PCB that the cards/modules slide into.

One question that your post suggested to me is: Does the processor card/module require the presence of the 206 card/module (or a 400 card/module) in the cabinet in order to "light-up" both?

 

[FarmerTech]

I am now on-site and placed a "good" main processor and a "good" 206E card into the "questionable" cabinet. Both cards/modules did "light-up". This should verify that the backplane of the cabinet/carrier is also good.

I then placed the "good" extension processor and the "good" 206E card in the cabinet/carrier and connected the interconnect cable. NOTHING. No lights, but I do hear the click and whine of the cards powering up. Hmmmm...

I removed the 50-Pin interconnect cable and checked continuity. Cable tested fine point-to-point but without a 50-Pin cable tester I cannot test for shorts between pins or flex/stress the cable to see if something shows up.

At this point I can only deduce that either my "good" extension processor is also defective. Or that there is a problem with the cable beyond simple continuity.

Still stumped.

 

[skip555]

I havent read the whole thread but are you powering up the main first and then the expansion ?

seems to me that has solved some issues in the past

 

[FarmerTech]

Thanks for the posting skip555.

Yes, I am powering-up the main processor cabinet first and then powering-up the expansion cabinet. This is a really weird situation. I am hoping someone will have encountered this before.

Someone did mention that I might have a problem/issue in the main processor cabinet which has 4 each 206E modules/cards. I replaced the main processor with a known "good" spare and still no solution. All the 206E cards are powered up and operating in the main cabinet and I am unsure how these could be causing an issue with the expansion cabinet.

 

[FarmerTech]

Success at last. The powering-up of the expansion cabinet 1st is the key. This is counter-intuitive but ttech1000 was right. The main processor only seemed to recognize what was available at the time of the start-up and not what became available when the expansion cabinet was powered up second.

A system #728 reset caused the entire cabinet to light-up.

Thanks to all who contributed to this thread.